II

So far there has been introduced into this story the bad man,

Francesco, with crab-like tendencies, who has just lost his wife; the

ravishingly beautiful Loretta; the girl's mother, of whom all sorts of

stories were told--none to her credit; big tender-hearted Luigi

Zanaletto, prince of gondoliers, and last, and this time least, a staid

old painter who works in a gondola up a crooked canal which is

smothered in trees, choked by patched-up boats and flanked by tattered

rookeries so shaky that the slightest earth quiver would tumble them

into kindling wood.

There enters now another and much more important character,--one

infinitely more interesting to my beautiful Lady of the Shipyards than

any grandfather gondolier or staid old painter who ever lived. This

young gentleman is twenty-one; has a head like the Hermes, a body like

the fauns, and winsome, languishing eyes with a light in their depths

which have set the heart of every girl along his native Giudecca

pitapatting morning, noon, and night. He enjoys the distinguished name

of Vittorio Borodini, and is the descendant of a family of

gondoliers--of the guild of the Castellani--who can trace their

ancestral calling back some two hundred years (so can Luigi; but then

Luigi never speaks of it, and the Borodinis always do). Being

aristocrats, the Zanalettos and Borodinis naturally fraternize, and as

they live in the same quarter--away up on the Giudecca--two miles from

my canal--the fathers of Vittorio and Luigi have become intimate

friends. Anything, therefore, touching the welfare of any one of the

descendants of so honorable a guild is more or less vital to the

members of both families.

At the moment something HAD touched a Borodino--and in the most vital

of spots. This was nothing less than the heart of young Vittorio, the

pride and hope of his father. He had seen the "Rose of the Shipyards,"

as she was now called, pass the traghetto of the Molo, off which lay

his gondola awaiting custom,--it was on one of the days when the

two-soldi boy acted as chaperon,--and his end had come.

It had only been a flash from out the lower corner of the left eye of

Loretta as she floated along past the big columns of the Palazzo of the

Doges, but it had gone through the young gondolier and out on the other

side, leaving a wound that nothing would heal. She had not intended to

hurt him, or even to attract him;--he only happened to be in the way

when her search-light illumined his path.

Vittorio knew at a glance that she came from the rookeries and that he,

the scion of a noble family, should look higher for his mate, but that

made no difference. She was built for him and he was built for her, and

that was the end of it: not for an intrigue--he was not constructed

along those lines--but with a ring and a priest and all the rest of it.

The main difficulty was to find some one who knew her. He would

not,--could not, confront her; nor would he follow her home; but

something must be done, and at once: a conclusion, it will be admitted,

than an incalculable number of young Vittorios have reached, sooner or

later, the world over.

When, therefore, a rumor came to his ears that Luigi the Primo was

protecting her--the kind of protection that could never be

misunderstood in Luigi's case--a piece of news which his informer was

convinced would end the projected intrigue of the young gondolier, then

and there and for all time, Vittorio laughed so loud and so long, and

so merrily, that he lost, in consequence, two fares to San Giorgio, and

came near being reprimanded by the Gastaldo for his carelessness.

That was why late one afternoon (I was painting the sunset glow) just

as Loretta reached the edge of the quay on her way home, a young

fellow, in white duck with a sash of dark red silk binding and hanging

from his waist and a rakish straw hat tipped over his handsome face,

shot his gondola alongside mine and leaned over to whisper something in

Luigi's ear. And that was why the girl in her long black shawl stopped,

and why Luigi immediately changed gondolas and made for the quay, and

why they all talked together for a moment, the girl flashing and the

boy beaming, and that was why, too, they all three disappeared a moment

later in the direction of the high rookery where lived the baffled,

love-sick Francesco, his anxious father, the much-talked-about mother,

and the Rose of the Shipyards.

In a garden where the soil is so rich that a seedling of five--a mere

slip--blooms into flower before a foolish old painter can exhaust the

subjects along the canal, it is not surprising that a love affair

reaches its full growth between two suns. Not since the day she had

tumbled into the canal had she gone so headover-heels--both of them.

Nor did Luigi pull them out. He helped in the drowning, really.

He was talking to himself when he came back--a soft light in his eyes,

a smile lingering around the corners of his up-turned, grizzled

mustache.

"It is good to be young, Signore, is it not?" was all he said, and at

once began bundling up my traps.

Before the week was out,--nay, before the setting of two suns--every

gossip along the Riva--and they about covered the population--had

become convinced that Loretta was lost to the Quarter. Unless a wedding

ring was to end it all Vittorio would never be so bold in his

attentions to Loretta, as to walk home with her nights and wait for her

mornings.

Luigi shook his head, but he did not help the gossips solve the

problem. He had had trouble enough already with Vittorio's father.

"A common wench from the yards, I hear, Luigi!" he had blazed out--"and

you, I understand, brought them together--you,--who have been my friend

for--"

"Stop, Borodini! Not another word! You are angry, and when you are

angry you are stupid. I carried that girl in my arms when she was a

baby! I have watched over her ever since. A wench! Not one of your own

daughters has a heart so white. If Vittorio is so great a coward as to

listen to their talk I'll keep her for his betters."

All this snapped out of Luigi's eyes and rolled from under his crisp

mustache as he repeated the outbreak to me. What the end might be

neither the Giudecca nor San Giuseppe could decide. The Borodinis were

proud; Vittorio's father was one of the gondoliers belonging to the

palace and always rowed the good Queen Margherita when she came

incognito to Venice,--a post which greatly enhanced his social station.

Vittorio was the only son, and already a member of the traghetto, young

as he was. But then, were there any girls better than Loretta, or as

good? She helped her mother; she paid her share of the rent to

Francesco's father; she gave to the poor box. That she was the sunshine

of the Quarter every one knew who heard her sweet, cheery voice. As to

her family, it was true that her mother was a Sicilian who boiled over

sometimes in a tempest of rage, like Vesuvius,--but her father had been

one of them. And then again, was she not the chosen friend of Luigi,

the Primo, and of the crazy painter who haunted the canal? The boy and

his father might be glad, etc., etc.

The only persons who were oblivious to the talk were the two lovers.

Their minds were made up. Father Garola had promised, and they knew

exactly what to do, and when and where to do it. In the meantime the

Riva was a pathway of rose-tinted clouds constructed for the especial

use of two angels, one of whom wore a straw hat with a red ribbon

canted over his sunburnt face, and the other a black shawl with silken

fringe, whose every movement suggested a caress.

The one disgruntled person was Francesco.

He had supposed at first that, like the others, Vittorio would find out

his mistake;--certainly when he looked closely into the pure eyes of

the girl, and that then, like the others, he would give up the

chase;--he not being the first gay Lothario who had been taught just

such a lesson.

Loretta's answer to the schemer, given with a toss of her head and a

curl of her lips, closed Francesco's mouth and set his brain in a

whirl. In his astonishment he had long talks with his father, the two

seated in their boat against the Garden wall so no one could overhear.

Once he approached Luigi and began a tale, first about Vittorio and his

escapades and then about Loretta and her coquetry, which Luigi

strangled with a look, and which he did not discuss or repeat to me,

except to remark--"They have started in to bite, Signore," the meaning

of which I could but guess at. At another time he and his associates

concocted a scheme by which Vittorio's foot was to slip as he was

leaving Loretta at the door, and he be fished out of the canal with his

pretty clothes begrimed with mud;--a scheme which was checked when they

began to examine the young gondolier the closer, and which was entirely

abandoned when they learned that his father was often employed about

the palace of the king. In these projected attacks, strange to say, the

girl's mother took part. Her hope in keeping her home was in Loretta's

marrying Francesco.

Then, dog as he was, he tried the other plan--all this I got from

Luigi, he sitting beside me, sharpening charcoal points, handing me a

fresh brush, squeezing out a tube of color on my palette: nothing like

a romance to a staid old painter; and then, were not both of us in the

conspiracy as abettors, and up to our eyes in the plot?

This other plan was to traduce the girl. So the gondoliers on the

traghetto began to talk,--behind their hands, at first: She had lived

in Francesco's house; she had had a dozen young fishermen trapesing

after her; her mother, too, was none too good. Then again, you could

never trust these Neapolitans,--the kitten might be like the cat, etc.,

etc.

Still the lovers floated up and down the Riva, their feet on clouds,

their heads in the heavens. Never a day did he miss, and always with a

wave of her hand to me as they passed: down to Malamocco on Sundays

with another girl as chaperon, or over to Mestre by boat for the festa,

coming home in the moonlight, the tip of his cigarette alone lighting

her face.

One morning--the lovers had only been waiting for their month's

pay--Luigi came sailing down the canal to my lodgings, his gondola in

gala attire,--bunches of flowers tied at each corner of the tenda; a

mass of blossoms in the lamp socket; he himself in his best white suit,

a new red sash around his waist--his own colors--and off we went to San

Rosario up the Giudecca. And the Borodinis turned out in great force,

and so did all the other 'inis, and 'olas, and 'ninos--dozens of

them--and in came Loretta, so beautiful that everybody held his breath;

and we all gathered about the altar, and good Father Garola stepped

down and took their hands; and two candles were lighted and a little

bell rang; and then somebody signed a book--somebody with the bearing

of a prince--Borodini, I think--and then Luigi, his rich, sunburned

face and throat in contrast with his white shirt, moved up and affixed

his name to the register; and then a door opened on the side and they

all went out into the sunlight.

I followed and watched the gay procession on its way to the waiting

boats. As I neared the corner of the church a heavily-built young

fellow ran past me, crouched to the pavement, and hid himself behind

one of the tall columns. Something in his dress and movement made me

stop. Not being sure, I edged nearer and waited until he turned his

head. It was Francesco.